Shooting Star
by Cosmic Lucky
Summary: A collection of (mostly fluffy/angsty) Kamina x Yoko one-shots, inspired by various prompts - most are fairly in line with canon. Chapters are not necessarily chronological, and may contain spoilers. Please read at your own discretion.
1. First kiss?

Author's Note: The title was drawn from the Owl City song.

These stories will be my first attempt at a Gurren Lagann fanfic, or a fanfic at all, really. I know that it's very far from perfect, so please bear with me. Any constructive criticism is welcome and greatly appreciated. I think I'd like to become an adept writer someday... Even just by reading something I've written, you've pushed me closer to my goal.

Please enjoy, and I'd love you 5ever if you shot me a review, too!

* * *

"Hey, Kamina?"

"Yeah, Yoko?"

"What're you gonna do when this is all over, Kamina?"

Yoko had said one thing, but both of them felt the _if _inside that _when_. The man and woman lie on their backs beneath the stars, a softly sleeping Simon completing the top point of their noticeably lopsided triangle. If there was one thing that boy could do, it was sleep. But Yoko and Kamina weren't always so lucky.

Yoko felt rather than heard Kamina when he stirred restlessly across from her. A cricket chirped, compounding the silence before her comrade finally spoke again.

"To be honest, I haven't really thought that far ahead, Yoko." Yoko felt the smirk in his deep, sleepy voice as he tried to keep up the little game of saying each other's names after each sentence, but she also felt another emotion besides amusement. She couldn't quite place what it was, though – not exactly.

"Oh, come on," she snapped back, inexplicable annoyance tingeing her voice. "Everyone has a plan! Even if it's just to, you know... settle down."

Yoko wanted to smack herself in the forehead. Hard. Where had _that_ come from? She was glad he couldn't see her, because she knew that her face definitely did not look normal at this point. She sighed to command control over her breathing, and then just lie still in the silence that graced them for those next several minutes. To Yoko's surprise, the silence was anything but awkward.

Again, Kamina broke it.

"In my village underground, I met all kinds of people. And whether big or small, strong or weak, nearly all had one common life goal, one core desire – stability."

Yoko's eyes widened in curiosity and she positioned her head so that she could watch Kamina as he spoke. While the wind played with his dimly moonlit hair, he was jabbing a thumb toward the slumbering younger boy. "Especially this guy," he said. "His determination was amazing. Everyone's was." He paused for a moment, probably to gaze at the cloudy night sky. His smile was so serene, so assured; Yoko felt her heart catch, even as she willed it to continue beating normally.

"I saw that, at the end of the day, all they wanted to do was be free to live their lives," he continued. "To laugh, to love, to cry, to do... whatever. And I wanted nothing more than to give that to them, to give that to my little bro."

Yoko felt a lump in her throat as she spoke. She had a feeling she knew what was on his mind. "So? What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that that's what I'm supposed to do – what I'm meant to do. I think the thing I want most is to see everyone laughing freely, on this surface."

Yoko was speechless.

"That's what you were asking, right?"

Before she could do anything to stop them, Yoko felt the tears rolling down the sides of her face and onto the dirt. His words were so simple, nothing that really surprised her; she knew that Kamina was that kind of guy. So why was she so moved by it? She found herself clutching her hands over her chest.

"But that's not what I want most..." she mumbled quietly, almost as a whisper. Out of habit, she played an image of a kiss in her mind, this one different from all the others, yet just as necessary.

"Huh?"

"Nothing."


	2. Finale!

This was it; Kamina felt himself reaching the climax of his existence, his life's finale. That injury just now? That was fatal, and a lot of what he found himself thinking was that this time, his favourite redhead wouldn't be around to talk him to sleep.

Was that why he was still alive, and not dead? To make it to the night time? No, that couldn't be it; all his men were counting on him. He had to fight. They were a team, after all. He couldn't let a few small burns do him in just yet… no, not yet.

He knew, as he attacked those damned beastmen with the last ounces of his being together with his little brother, that he would never speak to her again. He knew this because if he could ever speak to her again, he would tell her that repaying her ten times wouldn't be enough for what she's shown him. He would tell her that even a hundred times wouldn't be enough.

He would also tell her that she was probably the first person he wanted to see laughing freely, even after everything she's seen him through. But he was dying now, and there wasn't enough time for that. So instead, he gave parting words to his dearest brother, and took exit from the most glorious act of his life.


	3. Numb

_It's my first night without you since our beginning, and all I can feel is the dirty rainwater that soaked into my socks. _

_I'm lying here in a bed, my bed, and I can't move to take them off. I can't move to take anything off. _

_It's so warm in this room and I could be warm too, but I don't want to be – not yet. The thing I want most isn't a stupid kiss or a happily-ever-after anymore; it's just to be open and bare and warm. But no warmth will ever be warm enough, not quite. _

_So I might as well not feel any warmth at all, right? _

_Allowing yourself something that isn't the real thing just reminds you of the real thing and makes you want the real thing even more, and I don't want to want that. And I don't know if I'll ever want to want something ever again._

_You're dead and I feel my feet losing feeling._

_I can almost hear your voice so I keep almost crying, but just almost._

_But what are you saying? _

_Now I can almost make it out: 'You have to want what you need.' __But why the hell would you say that, idiot? You have to know that I can't have what I need. _

_And now it's hitting me again like a ton of scrap metal, all sharp and heavy. _

_Well I guess you're right, even though your words just now were tactless and double-edged._

_I'm wishing that I can wrap one of my socks around my heart to make it feel like my feet and I swear I hear another person's feet shuffling away from my door, but it's hard to make it out over the sound of the rain slapping against the ground outside. _

_All right, whatever, I get it. Even though the only things a hot shower would bring back to life are my feet, I guess it's a start._

* * *

Author's Ramblings: This little snippet has no true narration; it's all thoughts. I'm rather proud of it compared to the first two chapters, but I've never written something like it, so I hope it makes sense.


	4. That's your best story?

"Hey, Kamina, got any stories? I really feel like falling asleep."

"What the hell are you trying to say about my stories, fatass?"

"Oh, just shut up and start talking."

"Er, well... Let's see... There was a small _earthquake_ one night when I was little, and I heard a girl who was probably my age crying because some clay angel her mom had made for her was cracked in two and the wings fell off, and her mother was dead. She kept on shouting 'Mommy made this! Mommy made this!' Well, until I yelled at her to shut up and get over it and that my dad was trying to sleep because he had some ass to kick in the morning."

"Weren't you just the most charming little thing?"

"Right? Mightiness coursed through my veins even as a boy! Anyways, after I said that, she told me I was stupid and I would always be stupid because at least she had a mommy and I didn't. So then I went over and hit her on the head and she started crying. The end."

"What? You hit a girl? And what was with that story?!"

"Well, what do you expect? I was a little kid and she was stupid, and she grew up to be an ugly pit chick anyway. But funny you should get so mad, because that brings us to my next point! Hitting girls is wrong, no matter how annoying they are!"

"Really, Mr. Genius? Just stick to piloting stolen gunmen, because philosophy is definitely not the path for you. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and ask you why you thought it was a good idea to tell some backwards story about not hitting girls. To a girl. As a bedtime story."

"To prove that I could keep you amused."

"You're dumb."

"You're cranky."

"Just go to sleep, before I crack you in two."


	5. A shooting star

_Hello again, Yoko._

It's Kamina... I hope you can hear me. When I see you smile, it feels like you can. Each night I get to watch you down there, staring at the twinkling stars with your eyes shining with a now-familiar light, the more beautiful you become. Sometimes, shooting stars burst through the sky. You make a wish every time, don't you?

Whatever you're wishing for, I'm waiting for it to come true. I promised to repay you ten times for everything you did, and now this is all I can do. Hope. Wish. That's all I can do for any one of my comrades. But sometimes, I feel like you're _so close_, Yoko, so close that I can almost touch you. Well, just almost.

I'm a man who always tried his best to keep regrets off the horizon, but I'd be lying if I said that I don't regret my own death sometimes. Isn't that strange? Most people paint the afterlife as a time of bliss, of freedom from pain and suffering. But it's only because of you. As much as I hate to admit it, I feel pain when I think of you. It's hilarious, really; when did the mighty Kamina, who went out in a heroic, fiery blaze of glory for the sake of the future of humanity and its generations to come, become such a sappy, angsty mess?

Well, it's not as if I regret the heroic part; I knew ever since I became a man that I was born to go out like that – it was awesome by anyone's standards, especially since I've been able to see the man my little brother was able to grow into because of my death. I just wonder, thanks to you, how things would be if I was still alive. You see, I spent a lot of time with you before that ultimate battle, and it never really occurred to me until the very end how you might have felt the entire time. If I had known, I would've been the one to kiss you first. Why, you ask? Because you were pretty much the first person ever to show genuine concern for _me_, Kamina, the person – not Kamina the Fearless Demon Leader, or Kamina the God of Manliness – just Kamina, the human. In all honesty, I could never hope to repay you for that.

I hate dwelling on sappy crap like that, though. What I mainly wanted to get off my chest tonight was that I don't want you to dwell on the sappy crap either. We had our kiss, and that's all that matters. My heart and soul are with you even though my body isn't, and that's all that matters. If I could wish on every single one of these shooting stars for you to find the happiness you deserve, then you bet I would.

But I had to move on from this forever world of what-ifs and has-beens. I hope you find the strength to do the same. That way, neither of us has to feel pain or regret any more.

_You hear me, Yoko?_ Well, I guess you really can't.

* * *

Author's Ramblings: Well, that's probably the last one I'm gonna do for this series. Deep!Kamina was really bizarre and trippy to write. The fact that he was dead too just made it worse. xD


End file.
